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Comment by bobchadwick | Hacker News Reader

This gets to the heart of the argument Christopher Schwarz makes in his book, The Anarchist's Design Book [1], which is that it's nearly impossible for people who aren't rich to buy high quality furniture that will last a lifetime. An alternative is to build it yourself. The Anarchist's Design book presents relatively simple plans for building high quality furniture without requiring a ton of experience or tools.

[1] https://lostartpress.com/products/the-anarchists-design-book

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Who actually wants the same furniture for life though? People move houses often. In my state the average length of a 15/30 year mortgage is 5 years, meaning the homeowner either refinances or sells and moves to another home.

New home means new furniture, and if the old furniture doesn’t fit the new home’s style then sorry, it’s out and something else replaces it.

The idea of people living in the same house for 30-50 years is dead. IKEA understands this, so they create furniture that lasts the average length of a mortgage.

I only bring this up because the GP post is talking about furniture you build yourself, but when you design and build something you will likely want it for significantly longer. I'm sitting at a desk I designed and built last summer. It represents around 80 hours of work over 4 months, from design to implementation. Everyone who sees it oooh's and aaah's, and I expect to have this desk until I die.

It's surrounded by Ikea stuff that will be thrown away when we move next.

From what I understand this is a part of why Ikea's furniture has such wide appeal. You had a hand in building it, so you have some attachment to it.

> high quality furniture that will last a lifetime

Other caveat being high quality furniture rarely last a life time, restoration / repair can cost more than normal furniture. Another consideration is some luxury furniture / design pieces don't perform that well to heavy every day wear. There's a lot of pieces in big homes / spaces that gets very occasional use.

> Curious about what we mean by "anarchism?" Read this short FAQ. It's probably not what you think.

presumably added at the bottom because people were expecting to download it for free...

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